Pens and Papers

[Krabby]

3 minutes ago, TheGrandKrampusvatar said:

I think you only die if @Rukon Corneliusis the DM!! He does love to kill off character's. He's is known as the George R.R Martin of D&D. 

I joined my core HS friend group a little after they had all been playing D&D and the guy that ran most of the campaigns was named Bob. He was (is) a super cool guy that always thought very logically and rationally and wasn't always the most merciful DM (which was fine, that was his style, we respected it) so characters would have a tendency to die off. One campaign he started apparently there was a party wipe just into the 2nd session and everyone (laughingly) said "You win, Bob!" and that became a running joke for years among us, even outside of DND hahaha

[Ruki]

It took 29 sessions, but we finished Call of the Netherdeep. They were SOOOOO close to getting the bad ending (3 players said yes, one player was like "maybe I should call my god first"). They ended up getting the neutral ending. Now we are going to do some post-game adventures and then move on to.... two different campaigns! Me and one of my players are going to run games in 2 week batches. Homebrew for them, Rime of the Frostmaiden for me. I'm excited to get to play!

[The Lusophone]

Given the... furore... over the upcoming changes to the OGL license for D&D, what's a fantasy table top system that's similar but doesn't require a 90 page rule book to pick up and learn? Some friends are interested in getting into stuff.

[Ruki]

Man, that OGL stuff has been a mess for WotC. I've been looking at Pathfinder 2e this week... I doubt I will make the switch (rules heavy, having to teach people new stuff, wanting to only play it on Foundry and less adventures available for that), but it's nice to think about. The amount of characters you can build are cray.

[JasonM]

On 12/01/2023 at 22:08, FestiveJack said:

Given the... furore... over the upcoming changes to the OGL license for D&D, what's a fantasy table top system that's similar but doesn't require a 90 page rule book to pick up and learn? Some friends are interested in getting into stuff.

I have personally been a fan of 13th Age, it does away with stat crunch for a more freeform approach to gameplay.

Example, instead of having a very specific preset of skills you can pick from like athletics or animal handling or w.e., it is based around player established backgrounds that challenge the player to invent the reason why they might be capable at climbing a wall.

Situation: you need to scale a wall.

Player: "My character worked in a circus as an acrobat, and learned to scale even the dizziest of heights."

DM: "Ok, roll your acrobat background with a dexterity mod to try and scale the wall."

Furthermore, it focuses on moving things forward, so every turn you get a +1 to your to hit until combat ends through an "escalation die", but it could also hooked into enemies showing up or getting bigger moves when the die hits a certain point.

It also does away with equipment crunch, for weapons the damage is class based and it allows the players to simply roleplay what weapon they're carrying, rather than needing to pick something from a list of acceptable gear.

Tl;dr - its very friendly towards beginners and groups that prefer roleplay and problem solving over stat crunching and dice grind.

[Ruki]

Sometimes when I build encounters I do test rolls, just to see what kinda damage the output is. In the test, it is a crazy amount... in real, thinks go VERY different. Every time!!

Anyways, my party now has the Hand of Vecna. 

[DoubleX]

I feel like that deserves some elaboration.

Also, have you considered tempting them with the Head of Vecna?

[Ruki]

1 hour ago, DoubleX said:

I feel like that deserves some elaboration.

Also, have you considered tempting them with the Head of Vecna?

They went to hell to deal with the warlocks old patron/get her girlfriends soul back. Vecna had orchestrated off screen Arkhan the Cruel stealing said soul, and then sent the warlock off in that direction. The wiped the floor with him and his goons.

Warlocks totes wants to attune to the hand. The cleric is like "fuck that "

[DoubleX]

21 hours ago, Kazuma KiRuki said:

They went to hell to deal with the warlocks old patron/get her girlfriends soul back. Vecna had orchestrated off screen Arkhan the Cruel stealing said soul, and then sent the warlock off in that direction. The wiped the floor with him and his goons.

Warlocks totes wants to attune to the hand. The cleric is like "fuck that "

Oh, Arkhan's involved, that makes sense now. Does also stand to reason he'd be vulnerable to Vecna's manipulations being attuned to the hand, even though from memory he's meant to be Tiamat's champion.

What level is everyone if they flattened Arkhan? Or is he reduced in level in Descent to Avernus and such? I believe he was reasonably high level in his guest appearance at the end of Critical Role C1.

[Ruki]

After the fight, they leveled up to level 14. Arkhan is CR16 in the book. It also doesn't help that the warlock got off a 68 point Finger of Death. And the major fight before this was Scanlan Shorthalt (who they also wiped, because they managed to dispel his True Polymorph table turned dragon in the first round).

 

Next? Adult red dragon with bumped up hp! And potentially the Champion of the Raven Queen if they attune to the hand. 

[Ruki]

My Spelljammer group has decided to fight a space-shark by feeding themselves to it and choking it to death. 

[Ruki]

Because of the whole WotC fiasco, I've been looking at Pathfinder 2e recently. Picked up Foundry VTT + The premium Beginners Box. Wow. So much better than Roll20. 

[Toe]

29 minutes ago, Kazuma KiRuki said:

Because of the whole WotC fiasco, I've been looking at Pathfinder 2e recently. Picked up Foundry VTT + The premium Beginners Box. Wow. So much better than Roll20. 

There's actually a big Pathfinder 2e Humble Bundle available right now!

[Ruki]

12 minutes ago, Toe said:

There's actually a big Pathfinder 2e Humble Bundle available right now!

That comes with the premium Abomination Vault foundy module! I'mma get this next payday.

[GhostMachine]

If I ever get back into D&D or try Pathfinder, I'm tempted to play a Dullahan, if allowed.

[Ruki]

So... got to try Foundry VTT + Pathfinder Beginners box tonight. Man.... it's so damn good.

 

Likes:
+Foundry is just, so cool. Between the loot mechanics (there are merchant versions as well), the lighting, the walls, the changing HP with a click of a button... so nice.
+Automatic weight and ammunition tracking!
+I really like PF2e. To the point that D&D has to pull out some big guns with One or new adventures to get me excited again.
+The monsters! Didn't really get to show it tonight, but they get a lot of cool abilities. 
+Rules for crafting so no handwaving or guessing. 
+I like that there was an actual puzzle in the adventure. 
+The flavor of characters, even from level 1

Dislikes:
-Forgetting to target is a pain in the butt. 
-Felt slower... but that's from learning a new game and a new VTT I imagine
-Why did it take so long to figure out how to upload a token?!
-Figuring out Port Forwarding was a pain. But that's done and out of the way. 
-The non-Abomination vault APs are more expensive, because it's $35 per book (for the premium VTT stuff), and 3-6 books. (But it feels like the quality is there)
 

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

We streamed our first ever episode of Night Witches last night. A game based around the historical 588th Soviet air battalion who were all women and flew WW1 biplanes on night bombing raids during World War 2. Amazing history and the game is already shaping up to be a good'un!

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

If you have a few background hours to kill, here is the recording where we run through the intro that the designer provided to get into the game (all roleplaying parts that aren't instigated by officers are from the players though).

 

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1728481729?t=00h12m25s

[TheGrandAvatar]

On 30/06/2022 at 23:50, Paton said:

"YOU MAKE NOISE?!"

I finally finally managed to create him last night. 

Spoiler

Name: Grunk or Krunk. Known as Korg in place's. Race: Ogre Class: Fighter

Ability Scores:

• Strength: 18
• Dexterity: 10
• Constitution: 16
• Intelligence: 6
• Wisdom: 8
• Charisma: 8

Equipment:

• Two-handed greataxe
• Studded leather armor
• A necklace with their Master Lokin's symbol

Backstory: Grunk was born into slavery, forced to work in the mines and fight in the arenas for the entertainment of his masters. One day, Lokin came to the mines and saw potential in Grunk's raw strength and loyalty. Lokin offered to buy Grunk's freedom and give him a new purpose in life, which Grunk accepted without hesitation. He did not have much of a choice. For he would have ended up back in the mines or dead.

Grunk doesn't speak much, and when he does, it's usually in simple sentences. He's not very intelligent and struggles with complex tasks, but he makes up for it with his brute strength and unwavering loyalty to Lokin and the rest of the party. It's rumored that Lokin made a deal with some shady characters to help Grunk escape from his former masters, which is why the ogre is so devoted to the rogue. Lokin and Korg have broken out of many place's in their time, and also broken into a fair few place's too.

 

[Paton]

He lives.